Læknaneminn - 01.04.1997, Page 18

Thord Theodorsson
The Dean of the Medical College is a Canadian and
other faculty members are from many corners of the
world, N orth America, UK, and other EU countries,
other Middle Eastern countries, Indian subcontinent,
S Africa, N ew Zeeland etc. Everyone has enthusiast-
ically presented the students with the very best princip-
les from the developed world, but it remains to be seen
to what extent the new Omani doctors will conform to
those principles. It will be theirs to take on the chal-
lenge of further amending and organising the way
health care is delivered in Oman.
There are some cultural constraints present in Oman
which are opposed to some integral parts of a proper cl-
inical method. As an example the family is usually split
up when taken care of in most clinics, the mother and
the children see one doctor or two (a female doctor and
a pediatrician) and the husband sees a male doctor.
It is to be acknowledged that the present Minister of
Health and his officials have been very successful in
adopting high tech medical principles from the West,
but some apprehension prevails when it comes to their
stance regarding the need of delivering a patient-cen-
tred health care services. Hopefully, ‘in shah Ailah’
these apprehensions will be eased.
REFEfíENCES:
1) Reviving primary care. John Fry et al, Radcliffe Medical Press,Inc.
1995
2) The crisis in medicine - a response. RJ Kolbe. South African Med J
1996;86:234-35.
3) Patient-Centered Medicine: Transforming the Clinical Method. M
Stewart et al.Sage 1995.
4) Regards -Sultanate of Oman. Ed: Michel Hetier. 1995
5) Sultanate of Oman, Ministry of Health: Towards health for all, by
M Jamil Khan 1992
6) High Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus and Impaired Glucose Toler-
ance in the Sultanate of Oman: Results of the 1991
National Survey.
MG Asfour, A Lambourne, A Soliman et al. Diabetic Medicine
1995;12:1122-25.
7) Teaching clinical skills to new medical students: the Oman ex-
perience.
BM Linder, A Saha and GFD Heseltine. Medical Education
1992;26:282-84.
8) The Patient-centred Case Presentation. TR Freeman. Family Pract-
ice, 1994; 11: 164-170.
1. tbl. 1997, 50. árg.
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